Police Arrest 3 In Alleged Drug Ring

UNION – Police arrested three alleged gang members last week who are accused of running a cocaine delivery service that delivered small amounts of cocaine to customers in mostly upscale neighborhoods in Union and Essex counties, authorities said.

The arrests conclude a five-month investigation by the Union County Prosecutor’s Office and the Summit and Union Township police departments. The three alleged gang members are accused of running a telephone-order service with customers in Summit, Mountainside, Berkeley Heights, New Providence, Union Township and Clark, authorities said.

The service, run by the Irvington-based G-Shine segment of the Bloods, received more than 1,000 orders per week, according to investigators.

Rashad L. Clark, 29, of Newark; Damon Greene, 35, of Newark; and Sharif W. Clark, 32, of Union Township were arrested and charged with cocaine distribution and possession and weapons possession on Sept. 10. Clark and Greene were also charged with selling drugs within 1,000 feet of school property.

Investigators seized a half-kilo of cocaine, two handguns and approximately $2,000 from a Union Township house. They also confiscated 62 small bags of cocaine from a vehicle Clark was driving at the time of his arrest, authorities said.

Prosecutor Theodore Romankow said the discovery was especially disturbing because of its reach into suburban towns. “The violence that accompanies weapons and drugs in this quantity are but a short step away,” he said, calling the alleged gang members “very well organized.”

The Summit and Union Township police departments contacted the Union County Prosecutor’s Narcotics Strike Force after they learned that the Bloods were making cocaine deliveries to customers within their jurisdictions, officials said.

Once detectives uncovered the telephone number, they made undercover purchases of cocaine from five separate gang members, investigators said. Within a half hour of each call, a gang member would arrive at the chosen location and deliver the requested amount of cocaine, officials said.

Authorities are still looking for other suspects in the case. Officials are not sure if other phone numbers were used in the delivery operation; all the arrests so far were made from undercover calls to one phone number.

“Because the investigation was based upon undercover purchases only, the scope of the gang’s delivery operation remains unknown,” Romankow said